Estimating failure time distribution and its parameters based on intermediate data from a Wiener degradation model

Instead of measuring a Wiener degradation or performance process at predetermined time points to track degradation or performance of a product for estimating its lifetime, we propose to obtain the first‐passage times of the process over certain nonfailure thresholds. Based on only these intermediate data, we obtain the uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator and uniformly most accurate confidence interval for the mean lifetime. For estimating the lifetime distribution function, we propose a modified maximum likelihood estimator and a new estimator and prove that, by increasing the sample size of the intermediate data, these estimators and the above‐mentioned estimator of the mean lifetime can achieve the same levels of accuracy as the estimators assuming one has failure times. Thus, our method of using only intermediate data is useful for highly reliable products when their failure times are difficult to obtain. Furthermore, we show that the proposed new estimator of the lifetime distribution function is more accurate than the standard and modified maximum likelihood estimators. We also obtain approximate confidence intervals for the lifetime distribution function and its percentiles. Finally, we use light‐emitting diodes as an example to illustrate our method and demonstrate how to validate the Wiener assumption during the testing. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

反舰导弹“双一”攻击最大攻击角计算方法

针对反舰导弹"双一"攻击作战中航路攻击角的制订缺乏定量依据、飞行航路中转弯角影响考虑不足等问题,研究最大攻击角计算方法。从反舰导弹飞行航路的航路点数量、转弯角、航路点间距、航程等方面对约束条件进行建模;提出了以攻击角最大、航程最短为目标函数的双目标规划方法;分析了航路点间距、航路点转弯角之间的关系。最后仿真计算了航路点数量确定与变化两种情况下的最大攻击角。结果表明:随着航路点数量的增加,反舰导弹最大攻击角迅速增大,但对反舰导弹的航程提出了更高要求;若过度追求大攻击角,将难以发挥反舰导弹的射程优势。     

Nonrobustness of the normal approximation of lead‐time demand in a (Q,R) system

For computing an optimal (Q, R) or kindred inventory policy, the current literature provides mixed signals on whether or when it is safe to approximate a nonnormal lead‐time‐demand (“LTD”) distribution by a normal distribution. The first part of this paper examines this literature critically to justify why the issue warrants further investigations, while the second part presents reliable evidence showing that the system‐cost penalty for using the normal approximation can be quite serious even when the LTD‐distribution's coefficient of variation is quite low—contrary to the prevalent view of the literature. We also identify situations that will most likely lead to large system‐cost penalty. Our results indicate that, given today's technology, it is worthwhile to estimate an LTD‐distribution's shape more accurately and to compute optimal inventory policies using statistical distributions that more accurately reflect the LTD‐distributions' actual shapes. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2003     

仿生机器人运动建模与控制研究进展

综述了几何方法在仿生机器人运动建模和控制中应用的最新成果,探讨了在统一框架下处理多种机器人运动问题的可行性.     

基于成败型试验数据的弹药贮存寿命评估

简述了弹药在贮存状态下的失效特点,建立了基于成败型试验数据的弹药贮存寿命评估数学模型和统计分析方法,评估了某种弹药在一定置信度下的可靠贮存寿命。     

基于仿真模型与遗传算法的最优火力分配模型

针对装备了先进舰载防空武器系统的舰艇编队,需要航空兵与水面舰艇联合多批次打击才能取得满意战果,由于毁伤经验公式所限,现有的算法只能解决对舰艇编队一次打击的火力最优分配问题,而不能很好的解决对舰艇编队多次打击的火力最优分配问题。论文将仿真模型加入遗传算法运算过程中,利用仿真得出每次打击目标的毁伤状态,并将其结果作为遗传算法的参数进行寻优。     

Machine scheduling with pickup and delivery

The coordination of production, supply, and distribution is an important issue in logistics and operations management. This paper develops and analyzes a single‐machine scheduling model that incorporates the scheduling of jobs and the pickup and delivery arrangements of the materials and finished jobs. In this model, there is a capacitated pickup and delivery vehicle that travels between the machine and the storage area, and the objective is to minimize the makespan of the schedule. The problem is strongly NP‐hard in general but is solvable in polynomial time when the job processing sequence is predetermined. An efficient heuristic is developed for the general problem. The effectiveness of the heuristic is studied both analytically and computationally. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

Attrition through a partially coordinated area defense

An area defense consists of several groups that act independently, i.e., do not communicate with each other. Each group has a fixed number of defenders and a controller that allocates these defenders optimally against the individual attackers comprising an attack. We analyze the effectiveness of this partially coordinated defense against a simultaneous attack of known size in which all attackers are considered to be equally lethal. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

Finding the Kth shortest path in a time‐schedule network

We consider the problem of finding the Kth shortest path for a time‐schedule network, where each node in the network has a list of prespecified departure times, and departure from the node can take place only at one of these departure times. We develop a polynomial time algorithm independent of K for finding the Kth shortest path. The proposed algorithm constructs a map structure at each node in the network, using which we can directly find the Kth shortest path without having to enumerate the first K − 1 paths. Since the same map structure is used for different K values, it is not necessary to reconstruct the table for additional paths. Consequently, the algorithm is suitable for directly finding multiple shortest paths in the same network. Furthermore, the algorithm is modified slightly for enumerating the first K shortest paths and is shown to have the lowest possible time complexity under a condition that holds for most practical networks. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

Scheduling a production–distribution system to optimize the tradeoff between delivery tardiness and distribution cost

We consider a make‐to‐order production–distribution system with one supplier and one or more customers. A set of orders with due dates needs to be processed by the supplier and delivered to the customers upon completion. The supplier can process one order at a time without preemption. Each customer is at a distinct location and only orders from the same customer can be batched together for delivery. Each delivery shipment has a capacity limit and incurs a distribution cost. The problem is to find a joint schedule of order processing at the supplier and order delivery from the supplier to the customers that optimizes an objective function involving the maximum delivery tardiness and the total distribution cost. We first study the solvability of various cases of the problem by either providing an efficient algorithm or proving the intractability of the problem. We then develop a fast heuristic for the general problem. We show that the heuristic is asymptotically optimal as the number of orders goes to infinity. We also evaluate the performance of the heuristic computationally by using lower bounds obtained by a column generation approach. Our results indicate that the heuristic is capable of generating near optimal solutions quickly. Finally, we study the value of production–distribution integration by comparing our integrated approach with two sequential approaches where scheduling decisions for order processing are made first, followed by order delivery decisions, with no or only partial integration of the two decisions. We show that in many cases, the integrated approach performs significantly better than the sequential approaches. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005